Only about 6% of the world are native English speakers while 75% don’t speak English at all.
Many people do not have access to high quality health information, because it is not or scarcely available in a language that they understand. We are translating Cochrane evidence to make it more accessible, and to reduce the linguistic barrier to global evidence-informed health decisions. More than 28,000 translations of Cochrane Review plain language summaries and/or abstracts have been published as of June 2019.
Knowledge translation in different languages is led by Cochrane groups in different parts of the world. Cochrane groups translate Reviews and related content of Reviews, such as podcasts or blogshots. But they often also or instead write and disseminate news and other content in their language, do social media, work with professional societies, policy makers, patient groups or the media in their country, and offer training.
Most Cochrane groups have no or very little funding for translations. Some have support from their local funders, for example ministries of health or hosting universities, central Cochrane funding, or temporary grants, but most involve substantial volunteer time.
Get involved
You're a Cochrane group and want to translate Cochrane Reviews or related products? Please contact Juliane Ried.
You would like to participate as a volunteer translator? Join one of our Review translation projects, or TaskExchange.
You would like to stay informed? Join our mailing list for updates on multi-language activities.
How do we do translation at Cochrane?
As with other Cochrane work, our translation activities build on Cochrane’s key principles, notably: promoting access, enabling wide participation and building on the enthusiasm of individuals. Our translation work relies on the contribution of local Cochrane groups and individuals who in many cases do not receive funding for translations. We support translation activities in many languages, if there is a group of people willing to invest their time, ensure quality, and collaborate with us. An overview of our projects can be found here.
All teams use one or a combination of the following approaches to translation:
Volunteer translation
Most of our projects work with volunteers, and the project managers often invest their spare time, too. The majority of our volunteer translators have a health related background, while some of them are linguists or translators. Many students volunteer as an opportunity to learn and gain experience.
Professional translation
Professional translation is expensive, and therefore only a few of our projects work with paid professional translators on a regular basis. Languages that use professionals have their translations reviewed by health experts to ensure accuracy.
Machine translation and post-editing
Although we do not publish unedited machine translations, we are exploring statistical and domain-adapted machine translation in combination with post-editing as part of research projects, and some languages publish post-edited machine translations. Depending on the language and underlying machine translation engine, this is potentially a way to make translation more efficient and less costly.
What do we translate?
Our priority is to translate and disseminate Cochrane Reviews. As our Reviews are large documents, translations are mostly limited to abstracts and/or plain language summaries of the Review. These translations are published with the English Review on the Cochrane Library and on their own version of cochrane.org, which has been translated into 14 languages and has multilingual search functionality.
How do we prioritize?
Projects differ according to local set-ups, culture, and funding, and this also affects how they set priorities. While they generally focus on recent publications, some teams select Reviews for translation based on their expertise in specific areas of health. They also choose Reviews because they are of particular interest in their country, and they make their decision based on priorities of their funders or partners, or let volunteers focus on their interests and expertise.